Family owned Durbanville winery, Nitida Cellars, has released a second vintage of their much sought-after dessert wine, a Noble Late Harvest made from 100% Semillon grapes.

This luscious dessert wine is now named ‘Modjadji’ in honour of the Rain Queen of the Balobedu people in Limpopo. This hereditary title is passed down from mother to daughter with each successive Rain Queen inheriting special powers, including the ability to control clouds and rainfall.

As owner and cellarmaster, Bernhard Veller explains “It seems very appropriate to name our NLH wine after a strong and powerful woman because it links in with other wines already in our range. Our two MCC’s are both named Matriarch in honour of my mother-in-law who supported our farm from the very beginning. So when I was searching for a suitable name for this wine, it made sense to continue this matriarchal link. And, of course, it ties in with one of the key contributory factors to making Noble Late Harvest wines, which is the rain!”

The 2011 Modjadji (pronounced Mod-jard-jee) was harvested under almost perfect conditions. The sun-ripened Semillon grapes, which were infected with the Botrytis Cinerea fungus, were the last ones to reach the cellar. Fermentation was extremely slow, lasting an entire month, before the wine was filtered and then blended with a touch of normal Semillon in order to make the wine fresh and elegant in the mouth, packed with sweet fruit flavours but without any cloying stickiness.

The traditional partner for a Noble Late Harvest wine is dessert and Bernhard and the chefs at Cassia Restaurant on the Nitida farm, have matched it to a delicious Lemon Curd Dessert “the acidity of the lemons is perfectly balanced by the honeyed sweetness of the wine” says Bernhard. He also recommends it drunk as an apéritif, poured over crushed ice and raised in a toast to the lady who makes this very special wine possible – Modjadji, the Rain Queen.